Currently, there are many users who handle multiple documents every day. Typically, each document serves a particular purpose at a particular time, such that a document can be thought of as being in one or more states at any given time, e.g., “Creation”, “Editing,” Reviewing”, “Waiting for the document to be filled (e.g., ADOBE ACROBAT® Forms)”, “posted on the World Wide Web”, etc. In each of these states a user may desire to perform different sets of operations on the document.
While most document creation/editing programs allow all functions to be accessed via pull-down menus, most users find that it is more convenient to access frequently-used functions via use of a toolbar (i.e., an arrangement of buttons, each of the buttons invoking an action on the document). Currently available prior art systems usually require a user to enable toolbars, or if a toolbar has already been enabled for a prior document, it will appear to the user during the opening of the next document. The user can then open or close new or existing toolbars, as desired. Further, when a first user works in a document with a toolbar opened and sends the document to a second user, the second user opens the document under his or her own opened toolbars. Accordingly, opening a document often is accompanied by locating an appropriate toolbar for a given operation. Furthermore, a user may desire different toolbars for different types of documents or for the same document in different states.
Locating toolbars can often take a significant amount of time, especially if the toolbars are hidden behind many iterations of menu selections. This can result in user inconvenience and inefficient time use.